Copland

Explore the sights, sounds and influences that brought Copland to write music that gave Americans a sense of their own identity and created a truly American sound. With excerpts from the original 13-instrument version of Appalachian Spring.

Aaron Copland blended his Brooklyn Jewish roots with jazz, folk music, and hymns to gamble on a new American sound, yet how such an unlikely outsider captured the spirit of Billy the Kid is a tale worth its own string section. From Fanfare for the Common Man to Appalachian Spring, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony pare Copland down to reveal the sound we now recognize as purely American.